Water aid

Thousands of villages in Africa still have no source of clean water. People still have to walk hours with buckets on their heads to bring back dirty water from ponds or rivers to drink, cook and clean with.  Dirty water is the prime source of blindness, illness and early death in developing nations. 

Even though there may be no river near-by, there is always water deep underground which can be reached through drilling a borehole.  These range from between 30-110m deep.  Water then needs to be pumped up to the surface.  In more elaborate set-ups, water can be stored in water-towers and pumped up continuously as used using solar-powered pumps.

Traditional agriculture in Africa revolves around the rainy season.  When the rain starts, people plant their seed. After harvest, the ground is unused until the next rains – often for 6 months of the year.  In the dry season without rain, nothing grows. Unless you water the ground.  If you can give the people a water source such as a bore hole, the ground can be used to grow vegetables and fruit all year round.  

It costs roughly £5000 to drill a bore hole.  A small investment that will give significantly improved health and the possibility of growing nutritious crops all year round to a whole village. 

In 2023, Jacob’s Well shipped its own Well Drilling machine out to Burkina Faso.  A team of local men have been trained in how to operate the machine and in early 2025 a project is about to start which should enable us to drill wells at a cheaper price.  This project has been supported by Alpha Omega engineering in Derbyshire.